It’s an easy trap to fall into, if you’re 40 years old and have recently purchased a new home, you likely now have a 25- or 30-year mortgage term attached to your house. Unless something changes, that’s a mortgage you’re still going to have at retirement!
If this is you, you are definitely not the exception to the rule, but actually one of the majorities. People slip into this trap as many work their budget or finances on a month-to-month basis, and infrequently, if ever, look at the long-term picture.
If you did look at the big picture, you would see only minor changes need to be made to reduce your loan term by 10 years. That is reducing a 30-year loan to 20 years, or a 25 year loan to 15 years. This can be achieved by merely having the correct loan structure, and making extra repayments of only $50 a week.
Any way you look at it, being out of debt for an extra 10 years should be a huge priority. So, before you buy the new car, or upgrade to the nicer home, spend a little bit of time on your finances and see if you can get the goods AND improve your financial position.
So how can you pay your mortgage off sooner?
Don’t fix your entire mortgage.
While there are some very tempting fixed rates at the moment, if you choose to fix your entire loan, you’re also locking in how fast (or slow in most cases) you can pay down your loan payments. The payments will be locked into a payment regime with interest making up to 90% of the total payment. You should always have a small part of your loan floating that you can pay it down faster.
Utilise your income. Offsetting interest with your income should be a no-brainer. It’s simply using your income to reduce your loan balance until you need to spend it. You will have a mortgage for decades and this simple act will save you thousands of dollars in interest.
Get rid of other debt. You want to be focused with your debt – having only mortgage debt will help minimise interest costs and be easier to manage. By consolidating debt, you’ll free up money which, if put into your mortgage, will give you the ability to pay it down quicker.
Pay more than the minimum monthly repayments. Paying only the minimum repayments is never in your benefit as it means you will be trapped in a 25-30 year loan term which will come at a very high cost. Even increasing your repayments by $5 a week could save you $20,000 over the life of your mortgage.
If you want to know more about how you can avoid having mortgage debt at retirement, get in touch with our expert mortgage team today!
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The Winner will be determined by Haven Financial Advisers and will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.
The Winner will be notified by email, phone (voice or text), mail or in person. Where attempts to contact the Winner fail (e.g. when the Winner cannot be contacted by phone after three attempts or mail sent is returned) Haven Financial Advisers will select another winner. If, after successful notification, the prize is not collected within two months of being announced, it will be regarded as forfeit. (Note: 3 attempts to contact the Winner will include individual calls to any numbers provided at the time of entry.
Where the Winner is required to claim the prize in person, they must provide proper identification (eg driver’s licence, passport, birth certificate).
The Winner takes the Prize entirely at his/her own risk and indemnifies Haven Financial Advisers in respect of any claim for any accident, injury, property damage or loss of life that may occur in connection with the prize. The Winner is responsible for all insurance, tax or other costs that may be associated with the Prize. Where the Prize has associated terms and conditions the Winner accepts the Prize subject to those terms and conditions and restrictions.
The Prize must be taken as stated and no compensation will be payable if the Winner is unable to use the Prize as stated.
The Promoter (Haven Financial Advisers) will not be liable for any prize(s) that do not reach the winners for reasons beyond the Promoter’s reasonable control. Where a prize is being supplied by a third party, the Promoter accepts no responsibility in connection with the provision of the prize, including without limitation, the failure of the winner to receive ownership of, or use of, the prize or any performance issues associated with the prize.
The Promoter will not be liable for failure to provide (or delay in providing) the Prize resulting from any events, circumstances or causes beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of god (natural disasters), acts of war or terrorism, national emergencies, issues of public health and safety, pandemic, mechanical breakdown, industry disputes, riots or failure of communication or power supply or voluntary or involuntary compliance with any regulation, law or order of any government.
Prizes may be subject to additional terms and conditions imposed by a third party (for example, vouchers may have additional terms and conditions and/or an expiry date or in the case of travel, additional terms and conditions may be imposed by airlines, service providers and venues).
The Promoter will not be responsible for any loss or damage suffered by entrants or anyone else as a result of, arising out of, or in any way connected with the Promotion or its prizes.
By entering this Promotion, entrants agree to the use of their names, photographs and likeness for promotional/advertising purposes, and agree to make themselves reasonably available for this purpose. Any copyright associated with an entry will be owned by the Promoter.
The Promoter collects and holds personal information provided by entrants for the purposes of administering this Promotion and for future Promoter promotional purposes. All personal information provided by entrants will be held by the Promoter and will not be provided to third parties unless otherwise specifically set out. Under the Privacy Act 2020, entrants have the right to access and correct their personal information.
Disqualified Participants’ are: (a) all Haven Financial Advisers employees (b) all people under the age of 18 years (c) all people without a qualifying delivery address.
Or,
Refer someone else to complete a financial review with any of Haven’s advisers for any service during the entry period and if they complete the review you will receive one entry each into the Competition.
The Winners will be determined by Haven Financial Advisers and will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.
The Winners will be notified by email, phone (voice or text), mail or in person. Where attempts to contact a Winner fail (e.g. when the Winner cannot be contacted by phone after three attempts or mail sent is returned) Haven Financial Advisers will select another winner. If, after successful notification, the prize is not collected within two months of being announced, it will be regarded as forfeit. (Note: 3 attempts to contact the Winner will include individual calls to any numbers provided at the time of entry.
Where the Winner is required to claim the prize in person, they must provide proper identification (eg driver’s licence, passport, birth certificate).
The Winner takes the Prize entirely at his/her own risk and indemnifies Haven Financial Advisers in respect of any claim for any accident, injury, property damage or loss of life that may occur in connection with the prize. The Winner is responsible for all insurance, tax or other costs that may be associated with the Prize. Where the Prize has associated terms and conditions the Winner accepts the Prize subject to those terms and conditions and restrictions.
The Prize must be taken as stated and no compensation will be payable if the Winner is unable to use the Prize as stated.
The Promoter (Haven Financial Advisers Limited) will not be liable for any prize(s) that do not reach the winners for reasons beyond the Promoter’s reasonable control. Where a prize is being supplied by a third party, the Promoter accepts no responsibility in connection with the provision of the prize, including without limitation, the failure of the winner to receive ownership of, or use of, the prize or any performance issues associated with the prize.
The Promoter will not be liable for failure to provide (or delay in providing) the Prize resulting from any events, circumstances or causes beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of god (natural disasters), acts of war or terrorism, national emergencies, issues of public health and safety, pandemic, mechanical breakdown, industry disputes, riots or failure of communication or power supply or voluntary or involuntary compliance with any regulation, law or order of any government.
Prizes may be subject to additional terms and conditions imposed by a third party.
The Promoter will not be responsible for any loss or damage suffered by entrants or anyone else as a result of, arising out of, or in any way connected with the Promotion or its prizes.
The Promoter collects and holds personal information provided by entrants for the purposes of administering this Promotion and for future Promoter promotional purposes. All personal information provided by entrants will be held by the Promoter and will not be provided to third parties unless otherwise specifically set out. Under the Privacy Act 2020, entrants have the right to access and correct their personal information.
The Haven Travel Promotion is only open to legal residents of New Zealand who are eighteen (18) years of age or older.
Disqualified Participants’ are: (a) all Haven Financial Advisers employees (b) all people under the age of 18 years.
The Competition begins on Monday 13th March 2023 to Wednesday 31st May 2023.
Complete a financial review with any of Haven’s advisers for any service during the entry period and you will receive one entry into the Competition.
The final winner will be drawn on Monday 5th June via random selection by Haven Financial Advisers.